


Get Up

by AliceinSpace



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Father/Daughter, Finale spoilers, Gen, Season 2, but hopefully you've seen it by now, the hell gate, upside down - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-20
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-05-09 06:03:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14710475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliceinSpace/pseuds/AliceinSpace
Summary: It all happens the same.Well. Almost all of it.He still watches in amazement as this little girl faces off with a monster more terrifying than the devil himself and doesn’t flinch.His little girl.But this time, she can’t do it. What do you do when anger just isn't enough?





	Get Up

**Author's Note:**

> Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed season 2's finale, but I also felt like it was missing something. It didn't feel as complete as it thought itself. So I wrote a thing to address the two biggest thoughts: disappointment that anger was all it took and curiosity about how the name Eleven became Jane Hopper.

The elevator rattles into the mouth of the Upside Down.  The jolting sends her slipping into him, desperate for the steady assurance he brings. He juggles the long guns out of the way so that he can keep the vehicle moving and support her at once, forgetting that there is nothing supporting _him_ until she has to catch him in return.

The chasm swallows them farther from the light.

Her shaking can’t be from the elevator alone.

“Hey kid…”

His words are lost, spiraling away from his mouth and flying as fast as they can away from what he and the girl are about to do.  He clears his throat loudly, simply for the sake of hearing something other than the yawning and creaking of hell opening.  He almost tries again, but even with the words escaping, she still heard them.

She looks up at him.  Wide, dark eyes.  Glinting not with fear as he knows his do, but with a certain species of determination that comes from knowing that this is it.  One way or another.

He spares that hand from around her shoulders and slides it over her tamed curls. He can’t look away from her.  Even after what has happened between them, she trusts that he will do this with her, knows that he will see this through to the end by her side.

“Hey…” he tries again.  _Gotta speak quickly, right to her, so she hears._   “When all of this is over–”

“I will be with Mike,” she interrupts, voice on fire.

“Yeah.  Yeah, of course I’ll make that happen, but kid, that’s not what–”

“Won’t die.”  She pushes away from him and plants herself firmly on her own in the exact middle of the clattering elevator.

“No, you won’t.  I won’t let you.”

They do not speak.

The elevator swings and halts.

Hell below and all around.

Heaven and earth above.

Needing a savior.

 

It all happens the same.

Almost all of it.

 

He still watches in amazement as this little girl faces off with a monster more terrifying than the devil himself and doesn’t flinch.

 

 _His_ little girl.

 

But this time, she can’t do it.

 

She can’t close the gate with anger alone.

She fills her head with images of the people who have hurt her and her friends, times when she has felt helpless and alone, all the things she wishes she could have done in the last 353 days.

But it’s not enough.

Anger cannot close something that fear ripped open so many days ago.

It just isn't enough.

 

This time, she collapses twice.

The first fall is to her knees, defeat weighing down narrow, bony shoulders that should never have to bear so much.  Her hands splay against the metal floor, the only thing between her and falling into a hell she could never crawl out of.

Then he is beside her, pulling her to him and chanting words that friends would never say: “It’s all right, it’s okay.”

He lies to her because he doesn’t know what else to do.

 

“I can’t,” she chokes.  Palms slam down.  “I can’t do it!”

 

Hands on her shoulders, forcing her to look into a large, familiar face.

“Hey.  Hey! Look at me!”

Her eyes meet his.

“Yes, you can.  You can do this.  I know you can.”

“ _I can’t_ ,” she sobs helplessly.

He offers her the tiniest smile, completely inappropriate for the moment. With a shaking and dirty hand, he wipes the blood and snot from her face and then holds it gently.  His words caress it, floating across the space between them and sitting in her mind like clouds.

 

“When we get out of here, do you want to come live with me?”

 

She is confused.

He shakes his head before she can say anything.  “Not… like in the cabin.  I mean actually live with me.  Would you like to be my family, Eleven?”

It takes a lot of silence before she can return one word: “…Papa?”

He jerks as if the word pains him.  “No, you will never have to call me that.  Understand?”  The fierce tone startles them both, but then her face sags with relief.  “I will _never_ ask you to call me that.  Just call me Jim.”

“Family?” she asks.

He smiles at that word.  Neither of them has had it for a long time.  “Yeah. Family.  I know I’m not much, but I want to be your family… if you’ll have me.”

She studies him for a long moment, a moment they don’t have, but she takes it anyway.  She is done with letting everything be taken from her.

 

She will take something back.

 

Heavily, she nods.

“I will live with Jim,” she whispers into his heart.  “Jim is my family.”

 

But they have to get out of this.

 

She has to get up.

 

So she looks into the sweat and fear and determination and tears of her family’s face.  Her thumbs wipe the bags under his eyes and with that salt on her fingertips, she stands once more.

 

She faces the gate and raises a hand to it.

 

Now her head is full of the people she loves. Mike. Jim. Will. Lucas. Dustin. Joyce. Her mother. Aunt Becky. Herself.

She sees all the kindness and love she has received since escaping the lab that squats above them and all the love she has given in return.

The gate begins to close.

She screams.

Her feet leave the ground.

Blood pours from her nose.

Her eyes burn as they break open at the edges.

But the gate is closing.

 

He watches her, amazed.  Moved to tears by the pride and love swelling in his soul.  He is inflated and buoyant as he fires off all the rounds he has to protect her.  When he runs out, he throws his own body between her and a spitting demodog.

 

It never reaches his chest.

 

It falls into the pit with its copies and the screaming stops.

 

He turns in time to catch her as she collapses the second time.

He cries over her, relief washing them both in a lightness that cannot be described.

“You did it,” he keeps whispering to her as he rocks her limp form.  “You did it.  It’s done.  I’m so proud of you, kid.”

“Jane.”  The weak voice steps out and presents itself bashfully to him, waiting in anxious fear to see if he will accept it.

His response is a smile and two words: “Of course.”

 

“Let’s go home, Jane.”

 

“Home with my family.”


End file.
